Parts of Tunbridge Wells and Canterbury are among areas suffering from the worst broadband in the country, according to new Which? analysis of customer speed tests.

The consumer champion found while rural Scotland and Wales still have Britain’s slowest average connection speeds, many local authority areas including towns and other urban areas are enduring sluggish speeds.

The areas with the lowest speeds recorded overall in the country were in the the Lake District, as well as parts of Scotland and Wales.

In Kent in Tunbridge Wells and Canterbury were found to be lagging well behind other areas in the county.

Tunbridge Wells had speeds of 11.4Mbps and Canterbury was not much better with connections speeds of 11.5Mbps (Megabits per second).

At the other end of the scale, Which? found that the fastest local authority area for broadband speeds was commuter borough Broxbourne with an average 32.5Mbps, which is considered superfast by both the Government which measures it at 24Mbps and Ofcom which measures it at 30Mbps.

To put this into context, this means that downloading a film in Canterbury will take around three times longer than it would in Broxbourne.

Other urban areas benefiting from fast internet include Crawley at 32.3Mbps and Watford which had 29.5Mbps connections speeds.

The lowest speed was in The Orkney islands which was 3Mbps, which would see broadband users finding it hard to use online banking or streaming services like Netflix or BBC iPlayer, due to the slow speed.

The research, using data from Which?’s own broadband speed checker, shows how people face a lottery when it comes to broadband connectivity - a situation which must be addressed if everyone is to get access to a good service.

The government has pledged to ensure a bare minimum connection speed of 10Mbps across the country.

Alex Neill, Which? managing director of home products and services, said: “Having a good broadband connection is a basic requirement for many important everyday tasks, so it is unacceptable that millions of people around the country are still struggling to get what they need.

“The Government and the regulator must now press ahead with plans to provide a bare minimum connection speed of 10 Megabits in every household and make sure that no one is at a disadvantage because of where they live.”